iphone

It’s Old Masters Week! That might not have much appeal to the world-at-large, but all week, New York’s auction houses are putting Renaissance works up on the block. One new development this year: Sotheby’s is introducing a private selling exhibition in conjunction with its auction. [Gallerist NY]

Mana Contemporary is hedging its bets on Jersey City’s tourism industry. The New Jersey-based art gallery, studio, and storage space has plans to build a Jersey City hotel, as well as a sculpture park and theatre near the Mana campus. And because Mana owner Moishe Mana has money—or an affinity for risk—new Mana “branches” are in the works for London and Los Angeles, and there’s a plan for a street-art museum close to the Holland Tunnel. [The Art Newspaper]

If you have a penis you may be more likely to get sick this winter. [Salon]

This whole Gawker vs. Quentin Tarantino controversy is way less interesting than the time they outed him as a toe-sucking creep. [Gawker]

Some good news for writers: The Knight Foundation is launching a new $1 million initiative to fund non-profit journalism. Applications open February 1, 2014. [Nieman Journalism Lab]

The new iPhone os won’t auto-correct misspellings of “abortion.” There are many other “hot button” words that also aren’t offered auto-corrections, but they aren’t equivalents; “rape,” “murder,” “virginity,” or the like. The more I think about this policy, the more offensive I find it. [The Daily Beast]

Your hate-read for the day: 750 words on why interviewing foxy celebrities ruined this journalist’s ability to date women who weren’t famous. [The New York Times]

Carolina Garcia Jayaram has been named CEO of United States Artists, a major grantmaking organization for artists. She leaves her position as Executive Director of the Chicago Artists Coalition. [United States Artists, via: Art Daily]

When discussing the work of William Burroughs, art critic Peter Schjeldahl describes the difference between literary criticism and art criticism. “The experience [of literature] is so drawn out,” he tells the New Yorker. “The experience of art works is very concentrated and it can be renewed. It doesn’t take very much time.” [The New Yorker, via: Andrew Russeth]

Legendary folk singer, amazing person and activist, Pete Seeger has died at age 94. [The Guardian]

Are you having trouble understanding artists through their art? Understand them through their STUFF instead. In this edition of STUFF we bring you the youngest artist we’ve featured thus far, Jonas Lund. (He’s under 30.) Unsurprisingly this New Media artist’s STUFF is heavy on technology.

We’ve braved our fair share of long lines at the Venice Biennale. Waiting’s rarely fun, but it hasn’t been entirely awful thanks to artist Jonas Staal and De Heren van Design’s “Ideological Guide to The Venice Biennale”. We’ve been reading a lot of it.